ŌÓÁŤŲŤÓŪŤūÓ‚ŗŪŤŚ ŠŤÁŪŚŮŗ

Ancient China. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 232, Ô¬Āg.
61 ‚Ä˜f.‚Ä™ In the same work (p. 280), however, we also Ô¬Ānd an identical graph, repro-
duced in a chart of Ô¬‚ags from Hayashi Minao‚Ä™s article ‚ÄúChugoku senshin jidai
no hata,‚ÄĚ whose assigned meaning is a hand that is holding a standard.
3
Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual, pp. 91‚Ä“92.

256
I N S E A R C H O F G R A S S A N D WAT E R

was the one initially charged with the duty of keeping track of hits at these
contests.4 Archaeologists and specialists in early Chinese history generally
agree that there must originally have been a class of people who special-
ized in the engraving of oracle bones and in the practice of writing; thus
the ancient shih could have been an ‚Äúengraver‚ÄĚ or, simply, ‚Äúone who could
write.‚ÄĚ5
The existence of a category of shih functionaries as ‚Äúmakers of books‚ÄĚ
is shown by the inscription on a recently discovered p‚Ä™an basin,6 where it
is recorded that the vessel was made by order of a shih ‚Äúnamed Ch‚Ä™iang
whose lineage specialized in tso ts‚Ä™e, the making of ‚Ä˜bamboo books.‚Ä™ ‚ÄĚ7 This
points again to the historian as someone engaged above all in the ‚Äúcraft of
writing,‚ÄĚ an activity that had to be performed at different levels of the
bureaucracy and was intimately connected with political and ritual func-
tions. Highly esteemed because of the magical and ritual powers attributed
to the written word in early China, this occupation later acquired special
relevance because of the moral, political, and ideological implications inher-
ent in preserving the past. The writings of the Ô¬Ārst historians, therefore,
were used to assist the ruler in the performance of sacriÔ¬Ācial rites; the div-
ination records these functionaries inscribed on animal scapulas and turtle
shells represent instances of their recording speciÔ¬Āc events.8
By the time of the Chou dynasty the shih had acquired important duties
that included assisting with astronomical and astrological affairs, especially
through the selection of auspicious and inauspicious days for the perfor-
mance of particular duties and rituals; accompanying the ruler to sacriÔ¬Āces,
on military expeditions, or to diplomatic meetings; and attending archery
contests. Historians under the Chou were also invested with the authority

to judge the morality of actions by the ruler.9 The writing of annals was a
later development that probably arose when historians had to keep a record
of the ofÔ¬Ācial activities of rulers for future reference.10 According to the
Confucian tradition, the wang of the Spring and Autumn period was always
Ô¬‚anked by a ‚Äúright‚ÄĚ and a ‚Äúleft‚ÄĚ shih, with the duty of recording, respec-
tively, the ‚Äúdeeds‚ÄĚ and the ‚Äúwords‚ÄĚ of the ruler.11 In this respect the posi-
tion of the shih was comparable to that of the medieval chronicler of the
West or perhaps of the ‚Äúlogographer‚ÄĚ of ancient Greece.
In the Warring States period, the Confucian tradition ascribed a moral
value to the work of the historian by charging the past with the preeminent
quality of being the repository of human experience.12 Thus historians were
invested with a moral authority derived not only from their knowledge of
the past but also from their institutional role as interpreters, or judges, of
the past.13 As the functions of the shih came to involve rituals, such as the
selection of auspicious days or the interpretation of planetary movements,
the deÔ¬Ānition of the profession of the shih came to mean not only someone
who could write but also someone who was engaged in the acquisition and
control of an ever more complex and esoteric body of knowledge. Astron-
omy, the calendar, and the recording of human events all fell within the
realm of historical knowledge and were glued together by the universal
belief in the co-terminal existence, close relationship, and mutual inÔ¬‚uence
of the human and heavenly worlds.14

History Writing during the Early Han

The dual function of the shih as recorder of both heavenly and human events
was institutionalized during the Former Han dynasty (206 b.c.‚Ä“a.d. 9),

9
H. G. Creel, Shen Pu-hai. A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century
B.C. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 85
10
B. Watson, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, p. 70.
11
Otto Franke, ‚ÄúDer Ursprung der chinesischen Geschichtschreibung,‚ÄĚ Sitzungs-
berichte der pr√ľ√üischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 23 (1925): 276‚Ä“309.
12
A. F. Wright, ‚ÄúOn the Uses of Generalization in the Study of Chinese History,‚ÄĚ
in Generalizations in the Writing of History, ed. L. Gottschalk (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 37; Creel, Shen Pu-hai, p. 85.
13
On the Confucian position on history, see Roger Ames, The Art of Rulership: A
Study in Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1983), pp. 1‚Ä“6. But other schools of thought also exhibited similar con-
cerns. For instance, Mo Tzu said that ‚Äúthe sources of our knowledge live in what
is written on bamboo and silk, what is engraved on metal and stone, and what
is cut on vessels to be handed down to posterity‚ÄĚ (Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual,
p. 89).
14
Benjamin Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 353.
258
I N S E A R C H O F G R A S S A N D WAT E R

when the shih became a high-ranking ofÔ¬Ācer in the central administration
of the state, who specialized also in astrological matters.15 The duties of the
T‚Ä™ai-shih-ling (usually translated as Grand Historian or Prefect Grand
Astrologer) included drawing up the annual calendar, memorializing about
the monthly calendar on the Ô¬Ārst day of each month, Ô¬Ānding auspicious days
for state rituals, and keeping a record of portents and omens. He was also
supposed to supervise the tests given for the appointment of the Masters of
Documents, that is, the imperial secretaries, who were required to know a
large number of characters and different styles of writing.16
After inheriting the position of Grand Historian from his father, Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien did not limit himself to data collecting and memorializing on aus-
picious days. He also allegedly continued, privately, the labor of his father,
Ssu-ma T‚Ä™an, in compiling a history that was not simply a collection of doc-
uments, but had a worldview, was politically ‚Äúengaged,‚ÄĚ and did not refrain
from interpretation and moral judgments. The project for a universal
history of China down to the Han, usually attributed to the son in its mature
formulation, was grandiose, but the search for the reasons Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
undertook it have so far failed to yield a satisfactory explanation.
Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s work and thought defy easy characterization, and
attempts to see him as the exponent of a given school of thought ‚Ä“ Confu-
cianism, Taoism, or something else ‚Ä“ have not been particularly successful
in interpreting the genesis of the Shih chi. A theory that has had consider-
able currency has pointed out the proximity of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien to the
so-called Huang-Lao thought. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s intellectual position has been
seen as a synthesis of ideas drawn from the Huang-Lao tradition and the
cosmological elements of Han Confucianism, in particular those linked to
the yin-yang theory.17 But the Grand Historian also criticized popular Taoist
political ideals that ran counter to the notion of the centralized state, a posi-
tion possibly attributable to his upbringing, which presumably stressed the
‚ÄúConfucian‚ÄĚ ethos for civil service (his father having been, like him, a
Grand Historian, from the beginning of his career he always remained close
to the government and the palace).18 The presence of elements belonging to
different philosophical traditions and the syncretic tendencies detectable in
the Shih chi are supported by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien himself, who declared, in his

famous letter to Jen An, that he wanted ‚Äúto form a single school of thought‚ÄĚ
(ch‚Ä™eng yi chia chih yen).19 Arguably, it is in his endeavor to unify and
resolve the many variances and lacunae of an as yet not uniÔ¬Āed historical
past within a coherent whole that the author found a major raison d‚Ä™√™tre
for his monumental work.
To gain an understanding of Han historiography, the relationship
between history writing before Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien and the Shih chi has emerged
as an obvious but nonetheless engaging issue. Both √Čdouard Chavannes and
Burton Watson placed Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s work within the so-called Confu-
cian historiographical tradition, of which the Shih chi represented a more
advanced evolutionary stage. According to Chavannes, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s
main advance was his organization of already existing material within a
historical context; therefore, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was a compilateur rather than
an original thinker.20 This was possible, according to the French sinologist,
owing to a general Ô¬‚ourishing of literary activity ‚Ä“ a renaissance des lettres
‚Ä“ during the reigns of Wen-ti and Wu-ti.21 This interpretation leads us to
two conclusions. First, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien could not be considered the ‚Äúfather‚ÄĚ
of Chinese historiography because his own conception of history had
been generated by the Confucian one. Second, based on contextual simi-
larities, a genetic relationship is assumed to have existed between the Shih
chi and works such as the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Tso-chuan,
for which the Han historian is regarded as the conscious interpreter and
follower.22
Seeking to justify the radical differences between the Ch‚Ä™un Ch‚Ä™iu and
the Shih chi in conception, structure, and philosophy of history, Piet van
der Loon proposed an evolutionary scheme according to which Chinese
historiography developed in three stages. Before Confucius there was a
‚Äúritual‚ÄĚ historiography; then, with and after Confucius, there was a shift
toward a ‚Äúmoralizing‚ÄĚ use of history; and Ô¬Ānally, with Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, there

creation and the establishment of Confucian dogma, which called for more
‚Äúdidactic, moralistic, bureaucratic compilations.‚ÄĚ26 He saw Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
as the initiator of history written for use by state ofÔ¬Ācials.27 This ‚Äúsocio-
logical‚ÄĚ interpretation of early Chinese historiography has enjoyed consid-
erable favor among scholars writing in the West, whether they have seen it
as an offshoot of ‚Äúorthodox political morality,‚ÄĚ28 as a tool to Ô¬Āt the needs
of the bureaucratic class, or as a mirror of correct moral conduct.29
Yet the Shih chi was not intended as a bureaucratic compilation, was not
necessarily written for state ofÔ¬Ācials. The implied audience for Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s labor is to this day a matter of conjecture. Some scholars have tried
to go beyond an interpretation that stressed either the political morality of
the Shih chi or its bureaucratic nature. Various arguments have been pro-
posed to explain what might have induced Ssu-ma T‚Ä™an and his son to
embark on writing the Historian‚Ä™s Records, but the motives and conditions
under which the work might have matured ‚Ä“ consciousness of history‚Ä™s
meaningfulness for the present, potential access to recorded materials,
stimuli drawn from the lacunae and disorder of the previous historical tra-
dition, and personal ambition ‚Ä“ remain subjective interpretations, difÔ¬Ācult
to evaluate without there being some evidence provided by the author
himself.30
Some sentences in the letter of self-justiÔ¬Ācation sent by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien to
his friend Jen An have been raised to the status of a manifesto, or public
declaration of intent, and naturally have been the objects of close scrutiny.
These are ‚Äúto gather the old traditions scattered all over the empire‚ÄĚ

(wang-lo t‚Ä™ien-hsia fang-shih chiu wen); ‚Äúto research the conduct of affairs‚ÄĚ
(k‚Ä™ao chih hsing shih); ‚Äúto examine the patterns that lead to success and
failure, and to rise and fall‚ÄĚ (chi ch‚Ä™i ch‚Ä™eng-pai hsing-huai chih li); ‚Äúto
investigate the interaction ‚Ä“ or boundary ‚Ä“ between Heaven and Man‚ÄĚ (chiu
t‚Ä™ien jen chih chi); ‚Äúto comprehend the changes of the past and present‚ÄĚ
(t‚Ä™ung ku chin chih pien), and the aforementioned ‚Äúto form a single school
of thought‚ÄĚ or ‚Äúto complete the words of a single family‚ÄĚ (ch‚Ä™eng yi chia
chih yen).31 The Ô¬Ārst two sentences have been investigated more thoroughly,
in some cases leading scholars to conclude that the Shih chi ‚Äúrepresents the
union between ‚Ä˜interpretation‚Ä™ and ‚Ä˜criticism‚Ä™ in the tradition of Chinese
historiography.‚ÄĚ32 Whether there is such a convergence is doubtful, in the
light of the ambiguity inherent in the use of terms such as ‚Äúinterpretation‚ÄĚ
and ‚Äúcriticism‚ÄĚ in an early Han intellectual context. Noteworthy for our
purpose are the stress on the dual function of the historian as someone who
has to investigate both heavenly and human phenomena, the sense that
history changes according to ‚Äúpatterns,‚ÄĚ and the holistic or synchretic
vision of an intellectual pursuit.
The philosophy of history of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien is enclosed in a few key
terms, in particular, li (pattern, order, cause) and pien, ‚Äúchange,‚ÄĚ whereby
some kind of disappearance of the old and appearance of the new seems to
be implied. The sentence t‚Ä™ung ku chin chih pien suggests that there is a
sense of ‚Äúlaw‚ÄĚ that needs to be derived from the investigation of
‚Äúchange,‚ÄĚ33 which the historian must use to penetrate the general patterns

31
Han shu 62: 2735. Watson‚Ä™s translation of the last three sentences is: ‚Äú[I wish]
to examine into all that concerns heaven and man, to penetrate the changes of
the past and present, completing all as the work of one family‚ÄĚ (B. Watson, Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien, p. 66).
32
Y√ľ Ying-shih, ‚ÄúThe Study of Chinese History. Retrospect and Prospect,‚ÄĚ trans.
Thomas H. C. Lee and Chun-chieh Huang, in The Translation of Things Past.
Chinese History and Historiography, ed. George Kao (Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press, 1982), p. 11. Chinese Marxist historians have interpreted Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s claim for a separation between t‚Ä™ien and jen as indirect evidence of
a materialistic orientation, consisting of the historian‚Ä™s denial of Heaven‚Ä™s
intervention in shaping the fate of individuals or states, and in his attention to
economic relations rathern than to ‚Äúsupernatural‚ÄĚ explanations; see La
Chang-yang,‚ÄĚ Lun Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien te li-shih che-hs√ľeh,‚ÄĚ in Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien yen-
chiu hsin-lun, ed. Shih Ting and Ch‚Ä™en K‚Ä™e-ch‚Ä™in (Cheng-chou: Ho-nan jen-
min,1982), p. 84; Jen Chi-yu, ‚ÄúSsu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien te che-hs√ľeh ssu-hsiang,‚ÄĚ in Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien y√ľ ¬·Shih Chi√’ lun-chi, ed. Li-shih yen-chiu pien-chi-pu (Hsi-an: Shaansi
jen-min ch‚Ä™u-pan-she, 1982), p. 105.
33
‚ÄúChange‚ÄĚ was regarded as a ‚Äúlaw‚ÄĚ (fa) of history generating a type of ‚ÄúconÔ¬Āg-
uration‚ÄĚ characteristic of each particular phase (hsing); as such, ‚Äúchange‚ÄĚ was
regarded as a key principle of the Ch‚Ä™un-ch‚Ä™iu period. See Ch‚Ä™un-ch‚Ä™u fan-lu, ch.
63 (‚ÄúWu-hsing pien-chiu‚ÄĚ), 10a, 183a, 130a.
263
ANCIENT CHINA AND ITS ENEMIES

of historical development. Such ‚Äúlaws‚ÄĚ of history preside over and deter-
mine the speciÔ¬Āc character of each historical phase.34 The concept of li,
adopted by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien to indicate the causes or patterns that determine
the unfolding of human (historical) events ‚Ä“ success and failure, rise
and fall ‚Ä“ was also a term that had particular signiÔ¬Ācance in astronomy
because the calendar was supposed to embody the li of the natural world
and was key to cosmological conceptions associated with divinatory
techniques.35
These concepts pertained to both sides of the activity of the historian-
astronomer, that is, to his investigation of heavenly movements as well as
to his attention to human developments, and they point to the same essen-
tial pursuit of a knowledge based on empirical observation. This form of
knowledge, somewhat similar to what the Greek called autopsy, ‚Äúseeing
things for oneself,‚ÄĚ had as its preliminary goal the description and record-
ing of noteworthy occurrences. In other words, the central concern of Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien, in the investigation of historical change, may have consisted of
the deÔ¬Ānition of those characteristics of the ‚Äúrevolutions‚ÄĚ from one epoch
to the next that determine the special quality of a historical period and that
can be regarded as the unique attributes of each ‚Äúchange.‚ÄĚ36 The same
concept, at least during the Han period, could be associated also with astro-
nomical phenomena, as we Ô¬Ānd in the following passage of the Huai-nan
Tzu, ‚Äúwhen there is a great danger for the state, there are changes (pien)

in the heavenly signs (t‚Ä™ien-wen).‚ÄĚ37 Pien was a universal analytical concept
applicable to the observation of natural and astronomical phenomena, as
well as to historical ones.
At the time of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, the Ô¬Āgure of the astronomer had not yet
been separated from that of the historian; Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien himself was both.
As Nakayama points out, ‚Äúin China the term shih comprehended both pur-
suits. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien [. . .] is best known as an ofÔ¬Ācial historian charged
with the compilation of court documents, but in his post as T‚Ä™ai-shih-ling
he was also responsible for maintaining astrological records.‚ÄĚ38 Indeed, in
his capacity as Grand Historian Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien took part in all activities
related to the observation of astronomical phenomena and the preparation
of the calendar, that is, the two basic pursuits of Chinese astronomy.39
Terms like hsing, li, and pien express the same level of cognitive experi-
ence, theoretical assumptions, and world vision whether they refer to
human or celestial phenomena. It seems reasonable to suggest that the
Grand Historian‚Ä™s activity had not only a theoretical but also a method-
ological afÔ¬Ānity with that of the astronomer (or astrologer). In other words,
we can presume that history, being epistemologically intertwined with
astronomy, partook of the same heuristic assumptions and methodological
tenets. The empirical recording and systematic organization of data was
essential to both. This may have been true of an older period as well, but
it is only with Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien that we Ô¬Ānd a systematic investigation and
organization of history, and it is therefore Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien (and perhaps Ssu-
ma T‚Ä™an, to the extent that we can identify his contribution to the Shih chi)
who was responsible for the application of a method derived from the tra-
dition of the astronomer-astrologer to historical inquiry.
The ‚Äúrevolutionary‚ÄĚ aspect of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s activity as a historian
must rest, at least in part, on the application of methods of empirical inves-
tigation and observation of natural and human phenomena, which guided
astronomical calculations long before him, to the description and rational-
ization of historical phenomena, and in particular of those new phenom-
ena that emerged at the time of the uniÔ¬Ācation of the empire.40 At least one
37
Huai-nan Tzu, 20: 2a.
38
Shigeru Nakayama, Academic and ScientiÔ¬Āc Traditions in China, Japan and the
West (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1984), p. 4.
39
Xi Zezong, ‚ÄúCharacteristics of China‚Ä™s Ancient Astronomy,‚ÄĚ History of Oriental
Astronomy, ed. G. Swarup et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),
p. 39. He also took part in the famous calendrical reform of 104 b.c. and was
at the head of the state astronomers in charge on the observation of the sky; see
Homer Dubs, ‚ÄúThe Beginnings of Chinese Astronomy,‚ÄĚ Journal of the American
Oriental Society 78.4 (1958): 298.
40
Some light on this subject has been shed by Tu Sheng-y√ľn, who takes empirical
observation to be the basis of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s understanding of a number of astro-
nomical questions, ranging from the simple identiÔ¬Ācation of stars and planets to
265
ANCIENT CHINA AND ITS ENEMIES

aspect of his work as historian can be regarded as the observational, or
documentary, stage, which was aimed at describing the various phases or
facts inherent to a certain topic. Recording historical events, and providing
an accurately documented description of them, was the main duty of Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien as a historian, just as observing and recording celestial move-
ments was the Ô¬Ārst duty of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien as an astronomer.41 As Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien himself stated in his ‚Äúmanifesto‚ÄĚ letter to Jen An, the historian-
astronomer was primarily called on to register and explain those phenom-
ena that indicated transformation and change.
How does this prolonged excursus on methodological issues affect our
discussion of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s treatment of Inner Asia? I believe it is not
simply the existence of the Hsiung-nu ‚Äúphenomenon‚ÄĚ but more precisely
the search for observable phenomena and the ampliÔ¬Ācation of the describ-
able world that informed the historian‚Ä™s quest that led to the incorporation,
within the Shih chi, of an unprecedented wealth of information on Inner
Asia. Although knowledge of ‚Äúnomadic peoples‚ÄĚ through military con-
frontation, trade, and diplomatic relations must have been current in China
for at least two centuries before Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, the appearance of a united
steppe empire at the doorstep of China was still a fairly recent phenome-
non, one that not only had grave repercussions at the state‚Ä™s economic and
political levels but was also unprecedented in Chinese history. The great
concern caused by the novel formation of a uniÔ¬Āed, powerful nomadic
empire, and the many wars fought by the Han against it, qualiÔ¬Āed the
Hsiung-nu as a topic worthy of investigation. But it was the application of
the astronomer‚Ä™s method to this topic that generated the ‚Äúparadigm
shift‚ÄĚ from the moralistic or chronachistic accounts of the past to the
historically and ethnographically rich report that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was able
to produce. If other Han works of the same period failed to produce any-
thing even remotely comparable, this is because Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was con-
cerned with and trained in the empirical acts of observing and recording to

the study of their movements for the sake of perfecting the calendar and the
sundial. According to Tu, ‚Äúhis [Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s] research in the natural sciences
trained his thought and methods,‚ÄĚ a statement that has deep implications
for understanding his historical method; see Tu Sheng-y√ľn, ‚ÄúSsu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
te t‚Ä™ien-wen-hs√ľeh ch‚Ä™eng-chiu he ssu-hsiang,‚ÄĚ in Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien he Shih Chi,
pp. 222‚Ä“48.
41
Descriptive does not mean ‚Äúobjective.‚ÄĚ I do not mean to imply here that the
narrative provided by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien is free from ideological overlay. To the
contrary, the system of thought that the Grand Historian seems to subscribe
to weighed heavily in his construction of historical narratives. The ‚Äúrational-
ization‚ÄĚ of the phenomenon within the accepted code of values provided by
correlative thought in its Han Confucian formulation will be brieÔ¬‚y tackled in
chapter 8.

266
I N S E A R C H O F G R A S S A N D WAT E R

a degree that only an astronomer could have achieved. As we will see, the
information he included in the Shih chi covered a large spectrum, from the
ethnographic to the economic, and from the cultural to the political and
military.

The Hsiung-nu Described

Within a few years after Meng T‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s titanic expedition to the Ordos (215
b.c.), the north ceased to be, for the Chinese intellectual, either the habitat
of wondrous beings or an abstract philosophical construct. Soldiers and
laborers were dispatched to build and protect the extensive northern forti-
Ô¬Ācations, and colonists were sent to open up the new land. The north
became a new frontier not only on the political but also on the cognitive
level. As its geographic horizon expanded, China‚Ä™s need for knowledge
increased. The military disaster at P‚Ä™ing-ch‚Ä™eng and the humiliating peace
terms that the Han had to submit to added yet another dimension to the
problem of the north, which also appeared, suddenly, as an unprecedented
threat to the very existence of the Chinese nation. China needed ‚Äúexperts‚ÄĚ
to manage the north. The debate on foreign relations that developed in
China starting from the early Han was based on knowledge that, although
sometimes couched in a language replete with classical allusions, had been
acquired only recently. This knowledge was mastered by military experts
and politicians who specialized in foreign and, in particular, northern
affairs. A new breed of soldier emerged, specially trained to Ô¬Āght against
the Hsiung-nu. Statesmen studied frontier management and submitted
memorials to the throne proposing incentives and relief measures for the
people sent to colonize the region.
By Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s time, knowledge about the Hsiung-nu and other
nomadic peoples in the north and west had been accumulating for sixty
years thanks to war, trade, and diplomacy. Chang Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s expedition to
Ferghana had brought back invaluable information, directly relevant to the
opening of political and economic contacts between China and the states
of the Tarim Basin and beyond. More important, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s early
treatment of foreign countries opened the way to incorporation in the Han
shu of even more detailed information, which became available after the
establishment of the Protector General‚Ä™s OfÔ¬Āce (c. 60 b.c.). Would we now
have this wealth of knowledge without Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s earlier investiga-
tion? The question may be idle, but only to a point; it may be useful to
focus on the issue that, before the Shih chi, there were no intellectual ‚Äúcon-
tainers‚ÄĚ in which factual historical and geographical data could be stored
and transmitted. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien introduced empirical criteria for the col-
lection of this type of information and the recording of historical events.

267
ANCIENT CHINA AND ITS ENEMIES

His achievements, in the areas of ethnographic enquiry, geographical doc-
umentation, and historical accuracy, are all the more remarkable consider-
ing that during his lifetime older conceptions had by no means been
jettisoned by the intellectual community.
In this chapter, I will examine the type of sources from which Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien may have drawn his information on the Hsiung-nu and then move
on to analyze the three core features of the ‚Äúdescriptive‚ÄĚ phase of the Grand
Historian‚Ä™s treatment of Inner Asia: Ô¬Ārst, Ssu-ma‚Ä™s representation of Hsiung-
nu society, including the nomads‚Ä™ way of life, customs, cults, and military
and social organization; second, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s attitude toward the effects,
on both politics and the economy, that the wars against the Hsiung-nu had
on China; and third, Ssu-ma‚Ä™s treatment of geographical knowledge and
trade, which reÔ¬‚ects a more general interest of the historian in the possi-
bilities that its expanding frontiers offered China. On this last point, I will
not deal with speciÔ¬Āc geographical questions, but with the manner in which
the regions beyond the limina of the Chinese community are represented in
the Shih chi, and how the changes undergone by the northern and western
borders affected Chinese society.

Sources

personal acquaintance. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, like Herodotus in Greece, was
regarded as one of the most widely traveled men of his time.42 Most prob-
ably, considering that he had very little written material to rely upon, Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien collected a considerable amount of geographic and ethnographic
information either by interrogating travelers or by traveling himself. When
he was twenty, he journeyed through southern China, possibly for as long
as four or Ô¬Āve years. Then, after entering the civil service as a petty ofÔ¬Ācial
(lang-chung), he took part in several expeditions to the west and to the
south.43 Moreover, in his capacity as lang-chung and, later on, as Grand
Historian, he continued to travel as a member of Emperor Wu‚Ä™s retinue,
following the ruler on inspection tours or when he traveled to perform ritual
ceremonies. Especially relevant to this study is the travel that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
undertook in the year 110 b.c., when he accompanied Wu-ti on a journey
to inspect the northern border. There, as he says in the biography of Meng

T‚Ä™ien, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien visited the long walls built by the Ch‚Ä™in general
allegedly to contain the Hsiung-nu.44

oral accounts by chinese people. Just as Iordanes based his account
of the Huns, in Getica, on the information provided by Priscus, long-time
resident at the court of Attila, so did Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien rely on the written and
oral accounts of people who lived among the Hsiung-nu or, by being
employed in diplomatic or military missions, had acquired intimate knowl-
edge of them. One of the Ô¬Ārst was Ch‚Ä™in K‚Ä™ai, who was a hostage among
the Hsiung-nu even before the uniÔ¬Ācation.45 Hostage exchange was a
provision regularly applied to treaties and an integral part of diplomatic
relations between states during the Warring States and during the Ch‚Ä™in-
Han period.46
The Hsiung-nu, particularly during the Ô¬Ārst phase of the Han dynasty,
were a safe haven for rebellious Chinese leaders and dissatisÔ¬Āed military
commanders. Most famous is Chung-hang Y√ľeh (also read Chung-hang
Shuo), who Ô¬‚ed to the Hsiung-nu and provided them with inside knowl-
edge on how to conduct political negotiations with the Chinese. A speech
reported in the Shih chi in which he replied to the Chinese envoys‚Ä™ claims
of superior virtue contains much information on Hsiung-nu life and habits.
This speech may have been recorded by the same Chinese ofÔ¬Ācials who had
gone to the Hsiung-nu court and who later circulated at the Han court,
where Chung-hang Y√ľeh was regarded as a renegade and a traitor. It is
worth quoting from, for behind the Confucian rhetoric that Chung-hang
Y√ľeh used to turn the tables on the Han diplomats, there is a close descrip-
tion of the Hsiung-nu society:
The Hsiung-nu clearly make warfare their [main] occupation; since the old
and weak cannot Ô¬Āght, the best food and drink are given to the strong and
healthy, who then become the defense and protection [of the nation]; in this
way both fathers and sons can live long in security. Can one really say that
the Hsiung-nu despise old people? [. . .] According to Hsiung-nu custom,
people eat the meat of their animals, drink their milk, and wear [clothes made
with] their hides; the animals eat grass and drink water, therefore they move
about in seasonal cycles. This is why in critical times they practice riding
and shooting, while in peaceful times they enjoy themselves without other
engagements. Their communal laws are not burdensome, and are easy to

implement. The relationship between ruler and subject is relaxed and simple,
so that ruling the whole country is just like [ruling over] a single person. When
a father, son or brother dies, they take their [i.e., the dead persons‚Ä™] wives as
their own, because they hate to see a lineage die out. Therefore, even when
the Hsiung-nu meet with turmoil, the ancestral clan is always preserved.47
Prisoners of war were another source of information. Every battle pro-
duced for the victor, on either side, large numbers of prisoners that were
taken back to the victorious countries and used in several capacities, as
slaves, servants, or soldiers. In particular if they were persons of rank,
returnees must have provided valuable information, and Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was
personally acquainted with military men who had extensive Ô¬Ārst-hand
knowledge of the Hsiung-nu, such as General Li Kuang and Su Chien, who
was a subordinate commander under Wei Ch‚Ä™ing in the war against the
Hsiung-nu.48

contemporary written documents and reports. Because the Hsiung-
nu had already been for several years a topic of heated debate at the Han
court, documents existed that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien could and did mine to gather
the information he needed. Among these, the most most important, and
also the best known, are the memorials by Ch‚Ä™ao Ts‚Ä™o, which we have dis-
cussed in previous chapters.

hsiung-nu people in chinese society. Surrendered or captured Hsiung-
nu who had entered China constituted an additional source of information
for Ssu-ma. Two Hsiung-nu can be regarded as representative of the
nomads‚Ä™ presence in China. One was the person who traveled to Central
Asia with Chang Ch‚Ä™ien, a Hsiung-nu slave called Kan Fu. Over the thir-
teen years of Chang Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s travels and captivity among the Hsiung-nu,
Kan Fu proved a loyal and resourceful aide to the Chinese explorer, and he
must have gained considerable notoriety to have been mentioned in Chinese
sources together with his famous master. The other person was Chin
Mi-ti, heir apparent to the throne of the Hsiung-nu king of Hsiu-ch‚Ä™u, who
was captured by another Hsiung-nu chief, turned over to the Chinese, and
employed as a slave inside the Yellow Gate Palace to tend horses under the
supervision of the eunuchs.49

It is possible that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien might have been regarded as a ‚Äúbar-
barophile‚ÄĚ by his contemporaries. In reporting the well-known apology for
the Hsiung-nu allegedly made by Chung-hang Y√ľeh, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien showed
a view distinct from the orthodox faith shared by many of his contempo-
raries in the superiority of the Han rituals and civilization.50 Although the
Hsiung-nu may have been cruel, greedy, and arrogant, they also had their
own ways and traditions, and Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s sympathies may have gone
to those who, like himself, tried to understand them. Between Li Kuang,
the general who had trained his soldiers to Ô¬Āght the Hsiung-nu using their
own methods, and the more orthodox Ch‚Ä™eng Pu-chih, the historian
undoubtedly preferred Li Kuang.51 Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, however, feared censor-
ship, and in the colophon to chapter 110 he admitted that he was not free
to speak openly. Even more signiÔ¬Ācantly, Pan Ku did not mention Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s name at the close of the chapter on the Hsiung-nu (94) in the Han
shu, when he discussed policies for dealing with the Hsiung-nu, such as
those proposed by Tung Chung-shu. Pan Ku quotes the Shu ching, Shih
ching, and Spring and Autumn Annals but does not mention the Shih chi,
although the Ô¬Ārst part of Pan Ku‚Ä™s chapter is almost a verbatim copy of
chapter 110 of the Shih chi.
Pan Ku was clearly at odds with his predecessor‚Ä™s views, and the fact
that he explicitly supported a more militant, forward policy is further evi-
dence of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s paciÔ¬Āst leanings.52 In Pan Ku‚Ä™s description of the
Hsiung-nu, contrary to that of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, we Ô¬Ānd strong derogatory
expressions, such as that the Hsiung-nu had human faces but hearts of
beasts. These two almost antithetical approaches arose from differences in
methods and aims. Whereas Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien lived through a period of sharp
confrontation between the nomads and China (one that required China‚Ä™s
urgent understanding of its neighbors), in Pan Ku‚Ä™s age the Hsiung-nu had
become less threatening, China was more conÔ¬Ādent of its own power as a
uniÔ¬Āed empire, and a stricter Confucian orthodoxy had asserted itself. Pan
Ku‚Ä™s aim was to explain, and perhaps intervene in, the internal political
debate on foreign policy, rather than to investigate the nature of the Hsiung-
nu. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s approach, in contrast, developed out of the experience

and knowledge he had gathered while traveling, which made the historian
recognize that the Hsiung-nu constituted, in his age, an unsolved historical
problem, an anomaly that China had to face in the process of asserting itself
as a politically and culturally uniÔ¬Āed entity.
Various aspects of the Hsiung-nu way of life are carefully reported in
the Shih chi, including their social organization, rituals, and religious
beliefs. Characteristic of the historian‚Ä™s narrative in this respect is the objec-
tivity of his observations and its remarkable freedom from the prejudices
quite common among Chinese intellectuals and politicians. In Ssu-ma‚Ä™s
description of Hsiung-nu customs we can therefore distinguish two types
of information. The Ô¬Ārst type, direct, is information that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
provided himself, whereas the second, indirect, is information reported by
him as other people‚Ä™s opinion. In the latter case, it is possible that Ssu-ma
Ch‚Ä™ien was expressing his own thoughts using other people‚Ä™s names to avoid
blame or to add greater weight to the opinions expressed. Nevertheless,
both contribute to give us a fairly accurate picture of Hsiung-nu customs.
For this analysis, ‚Äúethnographic‚ÄĚ material on the Hsiung-nu has been
divided into the following categories: pastoral nomadism, burial customs,
society and laws, military training and war, state sacriÔ¬Āces and ritual, and
language.

nized were also part of the zoological inventory of the nomads. The breed-
ing and herding techniques for these animals, each of which requires a
special type of knowledge and care, could not have been a matter of rapid
evolution, and they strongly indicate that a mature pastoral nomadic
economy had existed in northern China for centuries. Second, in pointing
out that ‚Äúeach of them has a portion of land,‚ÄĚ Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien seems to be
referring to individual nomads, though this is not to exclude that he meant
families and clans, because land rights were customarily recognized, in pas-
toral societies, on the basis of lineage. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s phrase, which may
imply the existence of ‚Äúprivate property,‚ÄĚ should be interpreted as meaning
that the Hsiung-nu recognized for individuals and families the right to make
use of speciÔ¬Āc pastures for their herds, even though the land was not fenced
and could not be purchased or sold.
If landed property rights, in whatever guise, existed among the Hsiung-
nu, it is unlikely that their movement in search of water and grass could be
a random one; Ssu-ma Chien‚Ä™s statement that they had a ‚Äúportion of land‚ÄĚ
indicates that migrations were conÔ¬Āned to a given territory and implies the
notion of cyclicality, which is the most essential aspect of nomadic economy.
To my knowledge, this is the Ô¬Ārst written indication that the Chinese had
understood the seasonal regularity of the movement of the herds. The search
for water and grass symbolizes the nomadic lifestyle. In describing how
General Li Kuang organized his campaigns against the Hsiung-nu, it was
said that ‚Äúhe would make camp wherever he found water and grass.‚ÄĚ This
expression suggests that he had adopted nomadic tactics of warfare to Ô¬Āght
against the Hsiung-nu.55

burial customs.
In burials they use inner and outer cofÔ¬Āns, gold and silver [ornaments], clothes
and fur coats; however, they do not erect earthen mounds or plant trees, nor
do they use mourning garments. When a ruler dies, his ministers and concu-
bines are sacriÔ¬Āced in numbers that can reach several tens or even hundreds
of people.56
Ssu-ma‚Ä™s description of burial customs is particularly interesting in view
of recent archaeological discoveries. A number of Warring States sites
attibuted to the Hsiung-nu, in particular Hsi-kou-p‚Ä™an and A-lu-chai-teng,
contain large quantities of gold and silver ornaments. This funerary inven-
tory differs from those of earlier nomadic sites in northern China in the
absence of weapons. The Shih chi statement seems to conÔ¬Ārm the attribu-
tion to the Hsiung-nu of burials that feature large quantities of gold and
silver ornaments.

The issue arising from the piece of information related to the presence
of an inner and outer cofÔ¬Ān is more complex. Whereas the Hsiung-nu
burials in Inner Mongolia, unlike those of the nomads of South Siberia or
those of the Saka and Wu-sun of Sinkiang, are not marked by an external
mound, the inner and outer cofÔ¬Ān is present only in a few of the Hsiung-
nu burials identiÔ¬Āed so far, which are far outnumbered by the more typical
vertical earthen pits. In contrast, the double cofÔ¬Ān is a standard Chinese
method of burial. Therefore, the reference to the double cofÔ¬Ān could lead
us to believe that, according to Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien, the Hsiung-nu had borrowed
a Chinese custom and were being made to appear indebted to China even
though, in reality, that was not the case. It is true, however, that in sites
such as Mao-ch‚Ä™ing-kou, we Ô¬Ānd a double cofÔ¬Ān.57 Moreover, it is possible
that a number of wooden cofÔ¬Āns have disappeared simply because of decay.
In fact, though not frequent, the pit with a cofÔ¬Ān placed in a timber frame
(a second cofÔ¬Ān) with no overgrave setting has been identiÔ¬Āed by archae-
ologists as one of the Hsiung-nu burial structures. The hypothesis proposed
by archaeologists such as Minyaev, who believe that different burial struc-
tures reÔ¬‚ected social stratiÔ¬Ācation, would indicate that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was
not referring to all Hsiung-nu burials, but only to those of the aristocracy,
which were more elaborate than those of commoners.58 His information
was partly inaccurate, though, since in Inner Mongolia there are a number
of rich Hsiung-nu burials, undoubtedly belonging to prominent people,
with no double cofÔ¬Ān. Nevertheless, it cannot be taken as a statement that
lacked historical reality, whose only purpose was to show a cultural bor-
rowing from China.
The last statement, referring to the killing of many scores of people sac-
riÔ¬Āced at the death of the ruler, also does not Ô¬Ānd direct conÔ¬Ārmation in
Hsiung-nu archaeology. However, no ‚Äúimperial‚ÄĚ Hsiung-nu grave has so
far been found, and therefore the evidence available is simply insufÔ¬Ācient
to either prove or disprove this statement. We may add that among the
Mongols it was customary to kill all people who witnessed the funeral and
burial place of a khan, to protect the secrecy of the location of the grave.
If such a tradition existed also among the Hsiung-nu, this might explain in
part Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s mention of a sacriÔ¬Āce en masse, though the speciÔ¬Āc
mention of ministers and concubines would not be correct.

society and laws. Hsiung-nu society was, to the status-conscious
Chinese, a remarkably egalitarian society, with little differentiation between

commoners and ‚Äúaristocracy,‚ÄĚ as we have already seen in the memorial by
Chung-hang Y√ľeh cited earlier. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s description of Hsiung-nu
laws indicates the same type of existence unencumbered by burdensome
social constraints:
According to their laws, those who draw the sword one foot [out of the scab-
bard] are sentenced to death; those who steal lose their properties; those guilty
of minor offences are Ô¬‚ogged, those guilty of major ones are sentenced to
death. The longest period in jail does not exceed ten days; the imprisoned
men in the whole country are very few.59
Finally, ‚ÄúThey have no written language, and customary laws are only
verbal.‚ÄĚ
The relatively freer and simpler existence of the Hsiung-nu is not con-
trasted unfavorably with Chinese society. On the contrary, behind the plain
description of these simple social and legal rules, one might see a veiled
criticism of the cumbersome legal system put into place by Ch‚Ä™in Shih
Huang-ti and his legalist advisers. Although the Han rejected laws and pun-
ishments as the only tool of social order and cohesion, the daily life of a
Chinese subject was by no means free. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s own opposition
to the excessive recourse to laws and punishment was openly stated in his
praise of the early Han, when ‚Äúthe meshes of the law were spread so far
apart that a whale could have passed through.‚ÄĚ60 In Wu-ti‚Ä™s time, instead,
the laws had become increasingly stricter and more oppressive, and myriads
of people were executed, often on trumped-up charges. Even more worry-
ing was the realization that the proliferation of laws and the increased use
of punishments did not protect the subjects from abuse and unlawful action,
often brought about by the very people who were supposed to enforce
the law. As Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien states in his Ô¬Ānal remarks to chapter 122, ‚Äúfrom
the time of Zhang Tang [Chang T‚Ä™ang]‚Ä™s death on, the net of laws was
drawn tighter and tighter, and harsh penalties became increasingly frequent,
so that that the work of government ofÔ¬Ācials was gradually hampered and
brought to a standstill.‚ÄĚ61 Yet, harsher laws and punishments were regarded
by him as a necessary evil, to be preferred to the total absence of them,
which would only favor unbridled tyranny. This was certainly a gloomy
picture of his own times, in comparison with which the simpler life of the
nomads must have seemed to match in some way the ideal of an effortless
social machine, uncoercive and yet fully functioning by virtue of its own
simplicity.
In this game of contrasting images, the historian paints a society, the
Han, that has still to Ô¬Ānd the measure of its own values, morality, and

norms of social interaction.62 The ‚Äúholier-than-thou‚ÄĚ stance of the Chinese
envoys to the Hsiung-nu is not only ridiculed by Chung-hang Y√ľeh but
also questioned by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien. This type of introspective, self-critical
attitude toward his own society is not overt, but transmitted to the reader
through the laconic description of a different system. Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s
description of the Hsiung-nu is not value free. If on the one hand his effort
to document other social realities demonstrates a new openness to the
outer world, on the other it is also anchored to a well-deÔ¬Āned ethical
basis, of which the reader must be conscious. It is in the silent contrast
between the description of the ‚Äúdifferent‚ÄĚ and the consciousness of one‚Ä™s
own cultural dimension that the historical narrative Ô¬Ānds its true and
most powerful message. The egalitarian, simple, harsh but fair, and
above all free existence of the nomads acquires a special attractiveness
only by contrast with that of the Chinese subject, whose life is fettered by
many laws and endangered by cruel punishments and whimsical law
enforcers.

military training and warfare. The Hsiung-nu military superiority,
at least in the use of cavalry, was evident to all the Chinese, but whereas
Ch‚Ä™ao Ts‚Ä™o and other theorists were interested in Ô¬Ānding ways to beat the
Hsiung-nu on the battleÔ¬Āeld, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was interested in Ô¬Ānding the
reasons for their strength. In the description of the progress of the young
nomads from children shooting small animals to physical maturity, the
secret of their equestrian proÔ¬Āciency and excellent marksmanship was
plainly explained:
As children they are able to ride sheep, and can shoot birds and mice with
bow and arrow. As they grow a little older, they can shoot foxes and hares,
which they use for food. Thus as adults they are strong enough to bend a
bow, and all can serve as cavalry soldiers. It is their custom to make their
living in times of peace by herding the domestic animals and hunting the wild
ones, but in critical situations everyone practices military skills in order to set
off on invasions. This is their inborn nature.63
62
In the Huai-nan-tzu, a text compiled during the reign of Wu-ti, considerable
thought is devoted to the law, a topic that had been for a long time a central
pillar of Chinese political philosophy. Whereas laws were considered necessary
by the authors of the Huai-nan-tzu, an effort is devoted to smoothing their edges
and conÔ¬Āning their potentially oppressive use, by recourse to the principle of
‚Äúrightness,‚ÄĚ that is, consistency with what is desirable to the people. The search
for a balance between the ‚Äúlegalist‚ÄĚ framework that informed the government
structure, with its laws and punishments, and the Confucian and Taoist empha-
sis of moral principles must have been deeply felt in contemporary Han society.
On this, see Ames, The Art of Rulership, pp. 138‚Ä“40.
63
Shih chi 110, 2879; Shih chi chu-yi 110, 2313 (cf. B. Watson, Records,
2: 129).

276
I N S E A R C H O F G R A S S A N D WAT E R

It was truly their way of life, intimately connected with animals, whether
they rode, herded, or hunted them, that produced exceptional mounted
warriors. The expression ‚Äúthis is their inborn nature‚ÄĚ (ch‚Ä™i t‚Ä™ien-hsing yeh)
which could also be translated as ‚Äúthis is their natural behavior,‚ÄĚ is, in a
way, meant to reassure those who might have thought that these enemies,
almost invincible until Wu-ti‚Ä™s time, were endowed with special powers.
Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien brings a disturbing and even mysterious fact back onto a
plane of rational understanding by clarifying, step by step, the essence
of nomadic military training, and how this was the result of a different,
but nonetheless natural, process of growth due to the pursuit of speciÔ¬Āc
activities.
In the description of Hsiung-nu armament and tactics, Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien
does not indulge in long-winded comparisons with the Chinese. His narra-
tive is remarkably objective, and ‚Äúmoral‚ÄĚ considerations are kept to a
minimum. He describes their weapons (‚Äúthey use bows and arrows as their
long-range weapons, and swords and spears as their short-range
weapons‚ÄĚ)64 and their habits when it comes to going to war:
At the beginning of a [military] enterprise, they observe the stars and the
moon; if the moon is rising they attack, if it is waning they retreat. [. . .] They
are skilled in the use of troops that lure the enemy into an ambush. As they
see the enemy they look for booty, [behaving] like a Ô¬‚ock of birds. When they
meet with hardship and defeat, they disintegrate and scatter like clouds. Those
who bring back from battle the body of a dead [Hsiung-nu] gain complete
possession of the dead man‚Ä™s household and properties.65
The analogy of foreign enemies with beasts and birds ultimately goes
back to the classics, but in Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s age it was also a common way
to refer speciÔ¬Ācally to the Hsiung-nu. In the memorial presented by Chu-fu
Yen to Wu-ti there are references to quasi-contemporary documentary
sources on policy making regarding the Hsiung-nu, which, on account of
the similarities with the Shih chi‚Ä™s narrative, are very likely among the
sources used by Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien. It is said, for instance, that Li Ssu repri-
manded Ch‚Ä™in Shih Huang-ti for sending troops into the Ordos by saying,
‚Äúit is impossible. The Hsiung-nu have no Ô¬Āxed cities or forts and no stores
of provisions or grain. They move from place to place like Ô¬‚ocks of birds
and are just as difÔ¬Ācult to catch and control.‚ÄĚ66 Chu-fu Yen‚Ä™s memorial also
quoted a warning that Kao-tsu had received from an imperial secretary on
the eve of his defeat at P‚Ä™ing-ch‚Ä™engch‚Ä™eng: ‚ÄúIt is the nature of the Hsiung-
nu to swarm together like so many beasts, and to disperse again like a Ô¬‚ock
of birds. Trying to catch them is like grabbing a shadow. In spite of all Your

state sacriÔ¬Āces and rituals. Besides the structure of the Hsiung-nu
government, the Shih chi also illustrates other aspects of Hsiung-nu politi-
cal life, such as their state sacriÔ¬Āces and ritual practices.72 In many ways,
these rituals are reminiscent of Chinese ceremonies.
At dawn the Shan-y√ľ leaves his camp and makes obeisance to the sun as it
rises, and in the evening he makes a similar obeisance to the moon. [. . .]
When they sit the place of honor is on the left side, toward the north. The
wu and chi days [i.e., the Ô¬Āfth and sixth of the ten-day week] are their favorite
ones. [. . .] Every year in the Ô¬Ārst month the important people hold a restricted
meeting at the Shan-y√ľ‚Ä™s court, and perform sacriÔ¬Āces. In the Ô¬Āfth month they
have a large gathering at Lung-ch‚Ä™eng, where they sacriÔ¬Āce to the ancestors,
Heaven and Earth, and to their divinities. In autumn, when the horses are
fat, they hold a large meeting in which they encircle a forest (tai lin)73 and
calculate the number of people and livestock.74
From this passage we infer that the Hsiung-nu were using a calendar
based on the ten heavenly stems. They worshipped Heaven, the ancestors,
and their deities on the wu (Ô¬Āfth stem) and chi (sixth stem) days. These stems
corresponded to the element earth and represented the middle, fortune, and
blessing. Politically, they represented the power to govern the tribes on the
four sides. In the L√ľ-shih ch‚Ä™un-ch‚Ä™iu and Li-chi it is explicitly stated that
the element earth corresponded to the center, and its days were wu and chi.
In the chapter ‚ÄúT‚Ä™ien-wen‚ÄĚ of the Huai-nan Tzu it is also said that ‚Äúthe
centre was the Earth; it was ruled by the Yellow Emperor who controlled
and restrained the four quarters; its planetary god was Chen-hsing, its
animal symbol was the yellow dragon; its note on the musical scale was
kung; its days were wu and chi.‚ÄĚ75 The similarities raise the question of
whether there was any Hsiung-nu borrowing from the Chinese political

72
On the religion of the Hsiung-nu, see Hsieh Chien (Jiann), ‚ÄúHsiung-nu tsung-
chiao hsin-yang chi ch‚Ä™i liu-pien‚ÄĚ [The Religious Beliefs of the Hsiung-nu and
Their Later Development] in Li-shih y√ľ-yen yen-chiu so chi-k‚Ä™an 12.4 (1971):
571‚Ä“614. Important information on the rituals and sacriÔ¬Āces mentioned in the
foregoing passages is summarized in de Crespigny, The Northern Frontier, pp.
507‚Ä“508, n. 15.
73
Shih chi 110, 2893. There are different interpretations of the meaning of tai lin.
Some say it means ‚Äúto encircle a forest‚ÄĚ (in the process of performing a sacri-
Ô¬Āce), others that it just means ‚Äúforest,‚ÄĚ and others claim that it is a geographical
name (see Shih chi chu-yi 110, 2319). De Groot locates it in the region of the
Han city of Ma-yi, in the Yen-men commandery; see J. J. M. De Groot, Chine-
sische Urkunden zur Geschichte Asiens I: die Hunnen der vorchristlichen Zeit
(Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1921), pp. 59‚Ä“60.
74
Shih chi 110, 2892 (cf. B. Watson, Records, 2: 137).
75
Quoted in Chen Ching-lung, ‚ÄúChinese Symbolism among the Huns,‚ÄĚ in
Religious and Lay Symbolism in the Altaic World, ed. Klaus Sagaster (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1989), p. 67.

279
ANCIENT CHINA AND ITS ENEMIES

tradition, or whether Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien was deliberately referring to an ac-
cepted symbology of sovereignty to stress the concept that the Hsiung-nu
were an independent nation.76 This issue is somewhat involved, because we
do not have any corroborating source that may clarify the situation. The
Turco-Mongol people adopted in part the Chinese calendar, but that may
also have been a later development. But the expression of ‚Äúbringing the cal-
endar‚ÄĚ to foreign countries in Chinese sources is synonymous with politi-
cal and cultural expansionism. In this passage, however, no relationship of
subordination can be detected, and we can only speculate on the possible
implications. As this passage, taken in its entirety, seems to be consistent
with the ‚Äúdescriptive‚ÄĚ narrative mode, we can formulate three hypotheses.
First, the Hsiung-nu, under the inÔ¬‚uence of Chinese advisers such as Chung-
hang Y√ľeh, had started to make use of Chinese symbols of royalty such as
the calendar. Second, the source that Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien had relied on for this
information, possibly some Hsiung-nu captive or envoy, being familiar with
the Chinese rituals, had added that information to enhance the prestige of
the Hsiung-nu court. Third, an autochthonous calendrical tradition similar
to the Chinese actually existed among the Hsiung-nu.

language. The Shih chi reports an unprecedented number of Hsiung-nu
words. To be sure, these are still rather few, and they are insufÔ¬Ācient to
provide conclusive evidence of the type of language actually spoken by the
nomads.77 Nonetheless, the words‚Ä™ inclusion represents a new level of
sophistication in the information that Chinese historical sources provide on
different cultures.
Very few ‚ÄúHsiung-nu‚ÄĚ words appear in works anterior to the Shih chi.
In the Yi Chou shu, chapter 36, ‚ÄúK‚Ä™o Yin,‚ÄĚ we Ô¬Ānd words such as ching-
lu, the Scythian dagger known in Greek sources by the name of akinakes,
and, in chapter 59, ‚ÄúWang Hui,‚ÄĚ there are two words that indicate some
type of horse, t‚Ä™ao-t‚Ä™u and ch√ľeh-t‚Ä™i.78 The portions of the Yi Chou shu

where these words appear, however, are, like the bulk of Yi Chou shu itself,
not ancient, dating to around 300 b.c.79 This date may possibly mark the
beginning of the acquisition of knowledge about northern languages in
China, a knowledge that appears to have increased considerably by the time
of Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien.
Inner Asian words appear in the Shih chi and Han shu in various con-
texts. Titles are the most common, such as ‚Äúqueen‚ÄĚ (yen-chih) or the
various ‚Äúkings‚ÄĚ at the court of the ch‚Ä™an-y√ľ.80 These could not be trans-
lated into Chinese without incurring some ideological or terminological dif-
Ô¬Āculty. Another type of words is those usually deÔ¬Āned as ‚Äúcultural‚ÄĚ words,
that is, words speciÔ¬Āc to a given culture and lifestyle. Examples of these
words are ‚Äúwagon‚ÄĚ (fen-wen), ‚Äúbag‚ÄĚ or ‚Äúbasket‚ÄĚ (chia-tou), the already
mentioned ‚Äúdagger‚ÄĚ (ching-lu), ‚Äútent,‚ÄĚ possibly a yurt, (ch‚Ä™iung-lu), and
‚Äúkumiss‚ÄĚ (lo), another type of fermented mare‚Ä™s milk was called t‚Ä™i-hu,
‚Äúdried curd‚ÄĚ (mi-li), and ‚Äúfat‚ÄĚ or ‚Äúbutter‚ÄĚ (su).

Geographic Expansion and Trade

In the Shih chi place names, distances, and topographical information all
appear to conform to a high standard of accuracy, and for the Ô¬Ārst time
geographic information beyond the boundaries of the Central Plain became
a necessary ingredient of the historical narrative.81 Ssu-ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s

rationalistic attitude was no longer satisÔ¬Āed with a vision of the geographic
space as an accessory to mythology and a repository of legendary and fan-
tastic accounts, whose images no longer responded to the increased data
and precision demanded by the new political situation of a uniÔ¬Āed and
expanding empire. The motives for the transition from a mythological geog-
raphy to an ‚Äúexploratory geography‚ÄĚ should be sought in a direction dif-
ferent from the literary tradition.82 The main factors that contributed to the
‚Äúdiscovery‚ÄĚ of foreign regions and peoples (as consciously investigated and
realistically described agents in historical events) can be summarized as
follows.
First, after 221 b.c. Chinese intellectuals and statesmen could Ô¬Ānally rec-
oncile the notion of a common culture with that of political and adminis-
trative unity. The passage from a state of fragmentation to one of uniÔ¬Ācation
and centralization embodied in the concept of t‚Ä™ien-hsia was the essential
precondition for the development of geographical knowledge. To be able
to look beyond its ‚Äúnational‚ÄĚ boundaries, China had to become a single
political body and thus abandon the inward-looking attitude characteristic
of the segmented community of the Warring States period.83 The vastness
of the territory under a central administration, the increased control
imposed by the Han emperors over regional centers of power, and the
ampliÔ¬Ācation of the bureaucracy are all elements that called for a more
precise knowledge of the land.
Second, China‚Ä™s territory had been increasingly expanding into foreign
lands ever since the last phase of the Warring States period.84 The military
push that took place in that phase on the one hand brought the Chinese
people into closer contact with foreigners, and was responsible, especially
along the frontiers of the northern states, for the creation of amalgams of
different ethnic groups. On the other hand, the military reorganization of
the frontier, especially in terms of fortiÔ¬Ācations, road building, and estab-
lishing garrisons for guarding strategic places, had called for a better and

more precise knowledge of the terrain. From what we know from Ssu-
ma Ch‚Ä™ien‚Ä™s accounts, maps were already used by the Ch‚Ä™in in the year
227 b.c.85 Although this does not exclude the development of cartography
long before then, it seems that the most remarkable advancements in map
making ‚Ä“ or at least our knowledge of it ‚Ä“ do indeed go back to the early
imperial period.86 Two Han military maps found at Ma-wang-tui‚Ä™s tomb
no. 3 testify to the high level of technical specialization reached in this Ô¬Āeld.
The maps include not only indications of encampments and fortiÔ¬Ācations